Brandon Learning Centre: British Education - process, preparation and practicalities

As we expected, boys who are holding conditional offers for Radley are no longer expected to sit the Common Entrance exam in June. If your son is at a prep school, he may be asked to sit the exam as a way of gauging progress. If you are overseas or at a school which does not prepare for CE, I would suggest you complete the ISEB syllabus because it gives a brilliant grounding for Y9. Without the pressure of exams, you might want to try: Identifying smaller, more challenging topics which you might have rushed and really nail them. or Finding an area your child really loves (tectonic plates? algebra? autobiographies) and link this interest to a home project (research, interview, create!) If you are stuck for ideas, do please contact me and I will see what I can think of. Above all: don't worry about missing out, all new Radleians will be examined in September or October for setting purposes.

One of the challenges a number of our children appear to be encountering when they are taking the ISEB and other pretests is runnning out of time. The maths section in particular can present problems as students try to extract the problem from the test. Try this: Give you child a sheet of word-based maths problems (e.g. three boys bought a six litre bottle of orange squash which they divided equally amongst them, how much did each boy receive?) and ask your child to write out the resultant sum. As your child becomes faster, increase the complexity of the arithmatic. Include: fractions, percentages, measurements. Allocate time to completing the sheet. Use a large kitchen timer which rings when "time is up" so your child gets used to working to time constraints. Talk to them about how they are going to be dividing his time. You can use the timer technique are you practice verbal/non-verbal reasoning.